Hacking Altering Confidential Information

Question: Discuss about the Term Hacking for Altering Confidential Information. Answer: Hacking can be defined as an act of altering confidential information with the main purpose of accomplishing a mission that will later end up hurting an organization or individual. These people who involve themselves in such activities are widely known as hackers. In the year 2007, it was reported that hackers had managed to gain access into the United States of Americas password-curriculum vitaes, which were stored online (Baase, 2012). It is widely believed that these hackers used the information that they had previously hacked from the Monster Worldwide Inc. that had also been stolen from its customers. It is estimated that confidential details of about 1.3 million people who were looking for jobs had been taken and was now being used to Phiz, some of the job seekers information. According to Reuters, it is strongly believed that this attack on the U.S. site was carried out using two servers that are thought to be in a Web-hosting company that is based in the Ukraine. The group that did this used some personal computers that they controlled after successfully infecting them with malicious software programs. However, according to Monster, the information that was stolen by these hackers was limited to addresses, emails addresses, addresses, and names. The Company insists that no other details apart from these were taken from its site not even the bank account numbers were uploaded. One question that is still begging for answers is that even though Monster learned of this security breach much earlier, it had not bothered to let the public know all about these happenings (Castillo, 2016). After getting the information, the hackers now started bullying the clients by for instance asking them to provide their financial data together with bank account details; the clients was also requested to click some links that later infected their personal computers with some malwares. The hackers started threatening their victims telling them to either meet their payment demands or risk loosing their files because the victims computers had already been infected with some malicious malwares. This incident had caused many people to lose their trust in the Monster Company especially for not alerting the public early enough at the time when this incidence occurred. The Right to Know As much as the Monster Company was hiding this information from the victims, this was seen to be an infringement and betrayal on the side of the victims as they have been severely affected by this incident. As if to add more problems to more people, the information that was taken from the Monster company was also used by these hackers to gain access to the U.S. website that contained resumes of about 13 million people. The victims in this incident had a right to know what was happening. This incident has made many of the Monster Company clients lose their trust in its operations (Kizza, 2013). The Right To Privacy It is very clear and evident that proper security was not well taken care of by these two organizations in securing the privacy of their clients confidential information. An individuals privacy must always be paramount in each and every organization. The institution must seek the services of well able, skilled ICT professionals to seal every loop that hackers might take advantage to compromise their client information. All organizations must always make it a habit of checking and updating their systems so as to cope up with the new emerging cybercrime threats that are invented every day by people who are only on a mission to inflict pain, blackmail, and bullying to people. The Monster Company has broken many laws that govern the conduct of companies by first of all denying the people the right to information; the company has also violated the right to privacy. This can be considered as the reckless handling of the client information (Baase, 2012). Obligations These companies have a duty to protect the information of their customers from being stolen by the hackers. The companies are the ones, which are tasked to adequately and securely do everything necessary to protect their clients from search attacks. All organizations must always update themselves with the current trends in cyber crimes. They must liaise with different stakeholders so as to forge better ways of combatting the hacking manners. However, if these organizations do not do everything in their power to control this, then many people will end up falling into the hands of these merciless hackers who will stop at nothing to infringe pain on their victims once they get hold of their victim's confidential information. The owners or managers must do everything in their power so as to keep the trust and confidence of their customers. Long and short term consequences of hacking in Organizations Beneficiaries and Losers of the hacking activities There is no doubt that many industries and organizations that specialize in technology and computer are going to benefit from these incidences or even lose drastically from them. Most renowned firms that deal in the prevention of hacking, network or software development are poised to benefit enormously from this hacking incidence of these two prominent organizations. This hacking is projected even to spread further throughout the world. Those small businesses that also specialize in this part of the sector are also expected to grow and expand, as their services will be in much more demand by the affected organizations (Kizza, 2013). However, those industries in this field whose efforts and services failed in preventing these attacks are going to face a ruined reputation hence losing a huge client base and also a capability to attract more new customers. The other people who are going to suffer are the customers who have now been turned into victims by the merciless hackers who are evil bent on making their lives a misery. Some of these customers may lose their identity, money, their confidential information and every little information that meant so much more in their life. The victims will now be living in fear, as these hackers will always be determined to harass them at every little opportunity that they get. Conclusion As the threat of cyber-attacks continues to spread organizations are under immense pressure from various stakeholders to strengthen their security systems to prevent hackers from accessing crucial confidential information of their clients. Organizations can prevent these attacks by always updating their firmware; putting very strong passwords; regularly changing the organizations Wi-Fi router password; regular patching of firewalls; enabling firewalls on the company devices and also installing antivirus. Experts in the ICT field must be encouraged so as to provide and share what they with their competitors and peers. References Baase, S. (2012). A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology (4th Edition). Castillo, C. (2016). Big Crisis Data: Social Media in Disasters and Time-Critical Situations. Kizza, J. M. (2013). Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age (Texts in Computer Science). Bibliography Tavani, Herman. (2006). Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology. Watson, Tom. (2008). Cause Wired: Plugging in, Getting Involved, Changing the World.